Irving's evidence of the truth of his claims

8.34 When asked in cross-examination whether it is his position that the existence of gas chambers was propaganda devised by British intelligence, Irving replied that British intelligence had repeatedly procured the broadcasting into Nazi Germany of information about the gas chambers at a time when they were not operating. He went to claim that there is any amount of evidence that the gas chambers were invented by British propaganda.

8.35 Invited to accept that the source for the information about the gas chambers was a document sent to London by Riegner of the Geneva office of the World Jewish Congress in August 1942, Irving responded that British intelligence had been making claims about cyanide gas chambers before that document arrived. He did, however, accept that the message from Geneva was authentic. In any event, said Irving, it was clear from associated Foreign Office memoranda that the credibility of the claim in Regnier's message was doubted. Irving added that it has in any event been established that the person who Regnier claimed was the source of the information did not exist or at least was not a credible source. But the principal basis upon which Irving sought to justify his claim that the gas chambers were a mendacious invention by British propaganda was that about one year later, a senior Foreign Office official named Cavendish-Bentinck, commented on a report of Poles being put to death in gas chambers that he did not believe that there is any evidence that this was being done. Despite that, according to Irving British Intelligence put out through the BBC from late 1941 stories about the liquidation of Jews in the gas chambers. Irving was unable to produce transcripts of the broadcasts. He referred to diary entries by Mann and Ringelblum but agreed that he was unable to make the link between those entries referring to BBC broadcasts and British Intelligence.

8.36 Irving persisted in his claim that the gas chambers were a lie invented by British propaganda, "if the word 'invent' means anything at all".